Helpless

Sam’s mail order of pain pills from the Costco wholesaler was late. On the second day of the second week of the new year, a vicious snowstorm had torn through the heart of Linville, North Carolina, ripping apart the faded “Town ‘n Country” motel signs, forcing the “We Buy Gold!” pawn shops to begrudgingly close their gated doors, and immobilizing the town’s USPS shipping services. Two salt trucks from the neighboring city had been dispatched to remove the icy slush of concrete, asphalt, loose gravel, and fine topsoil, bearing the responsibility of the entire town’s winding backroads. And so Samantha stood on the porch, fully dressed head-to-toe in a thick Canada Goose jacket and mink fur earmuffs, waiting for the pills that would calm the fueling fire raging inside of her.

 A paper notice, held in place by a thick wad of bubble gum, was plastered on her door: Attention: shipment delays expected until 4:00 PM. – HOA.

“Ugh, well that’s just perfect. Thanks, Karen,” Sam muttered, glancing at the outdoor clock which read 9:00 AM.

Karen, Sam’s next-door neighbor and the Homeowner’s Association president, was always the harbinger of bad news; she repeatedly fined Sam for her improper management of her weed-infested yard, and any neighbor under Karen’s constant glare eventually moved out of the neighborhood. Now, Karen couldn’t even get the winter service vehicles to scrape away the icy mix of snow and black ice, adding to the list of letdowns of which Sam had become increasingly familiar with in the past few years.

Sam looked out at the picture-perfect winter wonderland from her cottage, which sat surrounded by a spruce tree forest whose thick branches perilously hung over its rotted roof and brick-veneer-sided façade. She could see the flickering lights of Mark and Sally’s attic across the street; Mark and Sally only visited Linville during the warmer summer months, when moss and various succulents began to populate hanging garden baskets all over town and the nearby lake defrosted enough for their kids to kayak. By committing herself to a life of reclusion, Sam had not spoken to the couple for almost three years now. Or had it been four or five? How old are their kids now? Sam thought to herself. Thick patches of ice now covered the lake’s surface, save for the occasional holes drilled by the Norwegians down the street who loved to ice fish.

Crawling back inside, a burning sensation ripped across Sam’s left hip, and a harrowing stiffness in her lower back left her momentarily paralyzed. As her wrinkled hands shook and hunched body trembled, she leveled herself against the front door. The pain pills couldn’t come soon enough.

*

Sam’s ambitions, dreams, and livelihood came to a sudden halt three years earlier. She’d been a postdoctoral associate at Duke University, studying the interplay between synaptic receptors, astrocytes, and neurotransmitters that perpetuate symptoms of depression. Yet, unbeknownst at the time, Sam would soon mirror the exact patient demographic she was once studying. 

After a two-week battle with bronchitis, she woke up one morning with a screeching shot of pain down her leg. She yelped in pain, unable to pull herself out of bed, and laid there whimpering. Her husband Matt, alarmed by her cries, rolled over and gently caressed her leg.

Pain exploded in Sam’s head with a blinding whiteness. Never had such piercing shocks rippled through her body.

“The Tylenol, the Advil, get me anything!”

All she remembered shortly after were the flashing lights of the Avery County EMS vehicle, and the blue, snake-like shield emblem on sleeves of the men who picked her up. Voices faded in and out.

“Ma’am, can you tell me your name?”

“Ma’am, can you tell me what year it is?”

The neurologist came knocking on her door later that afternoon. He greeted Matt with a firm handshake before slightly tapping Sam’s shoulder. She tensed up immediately.

“My name is Dr. Patel,” he said, unbuttoning the top button of his white coat. “I’ll just get straight to the point–I have news. Though I still need to confirm with a couple of my colleagues, we think your pain episode was due to fibromyalgia, a condition of widespread musculoskeletal pain.”

Sam glanced around, making eye contact with her husband.

“Unfortunately, no current treatments of fibromyalgia are known, and symptoms include fatigue, cognitive deficits, signs of depression….” Sam drifted off–she knew everything he was about to say. A neighboring lab in her department had been studying fibromyalgia with millions of dollars of NIH funding, to no avail. Tears began to pool in her eyes. She stared hard at the “Dr. Patel, M.D. Internal Medicine” inscription on his upper left chest before it became a blur.

*

Karen, the President of the Homeowner’s Association, also remembered the day Sam and Matt came back from the hospital. News, no matter how dull, always spread like wildfire in Linville, and the whole town had gathered on the couple’s driveway in preparation for their return.

The crowd swarmed the two of them like vultures eyeing fresh kill–Matt, clearly sleep-deprived, sluggishly walked Sam to the front door, and Sam, oh poor Sam, draped in a thin, polka-dotted patient gown, acquiescently held onto Matt’s arm. Hushed whispers permeated throughout the crowd before Karen broke the silence.

“Matt… Samantha… it is wonderful to see you guys. On behalf of everyone here, y’all have been dearly missed, and some of us even brought some little gifts,” Karen said, gesturing to the bags of chocolates and fragrant candles. “Of course, don’t think for a second that this little trip to the hospital excuses you from paying your HOA dues on time,” she chuckled, followed by a burst of obnoxious laughter from the crowd.

Karen couldn’t help but notice the worrying brown and red bruises extending along Sam’s arms and legs and the distinct hollowness of Sam’s eyes, almost as if they were piercing into Karen’s soul. When it was her turn to offer the couple some support, long after much of the crowd had dissipated, Karen strangely couldn’t find the words, instead awkwardly exchanging pleasantries with the couple before briskly walking away.  

From then on, only a shell of Sam remained. Karen could no longer rely on Sam’s blinding headlights to pour into her room and wake her up at the crack of dawn as Sam left for work, forcing her to buy a boisterous alarm clock. And no longer did Sam give those glaring looks of disapproval to her as she dealt out the next batch of tickets and fines to the neighbors; it was even worse when Sam was jogging and would pass by her multiple times as she made laps up and down the street.

*

The hours passed, and Sam’s pain pills had still not arrived. Sam now turned to the sounds of Matt’s footsteps as he marched down the stairs, dressed head to toe in Carolina Panthers gear. His doo-rag clung loosely to his head with specks of curly hair slipping through its bottom, and his heels hung out of his size 15 slippers. His shirt proudly read “Carolina Football–Keep Pounding” but could no longer rein in and hide his belly–it had significantly grown with his years as an offensive lineman and a calorie-surplus diet.

“What’s the special occasion this mornin’?” Matt asked. Sam rarely woke up before noon on the weekdays. He walked over to the fridge to pour himself the last bit of orange juice, angling the bottle ever so slightly to prevent the pulp from falling into his glass.

“Waiting around for my pills.” Sam paced around, right arm massaging her lower back as her left arm gripped onto the peeling vinyl wallpaper. She grimaced; after the fibromyalgia diagnosis, she had adamantly denied the prescription of any opioids for her lifelong pain. Her line of work had exposed her to the dangers of opioids — the husks of people with emaciated cheeks, sunken eyes, and pale skin who walked into the study visit seeking quick cash for their next fix — and she promised herself that she would never look like those monsters. However, the NSAIDs, acetaminophen, and gabapentin never worked, prompting her to beg for something, anything stronger.

“Like I’ve said, it’s all mental,” Matt said. “Remember when I tore my ACL?”

They’ve had this conversation countless times. While attempting to make a critical block during the 1998 NFL training camp, Matt tore his ACL due to a non-contact injury that sidelined him for the entire season. He joked that he could have returned if he wanted to but wanted to give an opportunity to the “youngins,” or the emerging college stars. “They don’t want this smoke!” he yelled at his retirement banquet.

Matt claimed that he was going out on his own terms, but the lingering pain from his disfigured knee made it impossible for him to return to the field again. Sam could sense his trouble accepting his new reality–the holes in the living room walls with indents that aligned with Matt’s bulging knuckles didn’t simply magically appear, and his receding hairline from repeatedly pulling his hair became more and more obvious. That was five years ago. Five long years ago. A universe away.

Yet as Sam’s condition deteriorated, Matt’s recollection of his recovery became increasingly distorted as well, so much that he credited himself for his recovery. “It’s all mental strength,” Matt would always say, calmly brushing off her complaints of sleepless nights, short-term memory loss, and tenacious fatigue. “For someone in academia, you should know that already. No need to be an addict.”

Now, unwilling to hear the same story again, Sam quickly interjected, “Please, Matt. We’ve been over this. You don’t believe what I’m suffering through–fine. You don’t even believe I have a real medical condition–fine. But the pain pills are all that brings me comfort.”

“My apologies. Would you like something from the fridge before I close it–a Granny Smith apple, one of the leftover chicken quiches, or perhaps a better attitude?” Matt retorted in return.

Sam brushed off his snarky comment, knowing nothing good would come out of starting another argument, and furiously clambered out of the foyer.

*

It hadn’t always been this way. Eight years ago, Sam prided herself on finding the “one” at the Chick-fil-A drive-thru window. Something about his smiling demeanor and the way he said “my pleasure” with a sexy flair in his voice had her hooked. At the time, Matt was an undrafted, degree-less behemoth who sharply contrasted Sam’s PhD aspirations, yet Matt understood Sam better than anyone she had ever met.

Matt was there in every moment she needed him. He brought her vivid dream of their house — much of it influenced by too many hours of HGTV — to life. A multi-shelf spice cabinet adjacent to the kitchen exhaust fan displayed spices, and a completely remodeled kitchen island, repainted drywall, and restructured open floor plan were completed in time for Sam’s 25th birthday. An ancient oriental rug, a family heirloom of Sam’s, sprawled across the living room, thanks to the hours Matt drove to retrieve the rug from Sam’s grandmother in Houston, Texas.

Matt surprised her with spontaneous adventures to the see the beautiful views atop Grandfather Mountain, where the wind nearly toppled them over the mountainside, and on lavish dates to places where they freshly cooked the food in front of you–Subway.

The years flew by as discussions about starting a family began to arise.  They talked about and briefly considered pregnancy before Sam quickly shut down the idea after trying out the “Pregnancy Simulator” at the strip mall, during which her hollers echoed across the mall’s walkways. “I can’t bear the pain,” she whimpered to Matt, knowing how much he desired a little Matt Jr. clambering around the house.

*

The spice cabinet door was now left ajar, revealing the half-empty shelves missing the ever-fundamental spices like red pepper flakes, chili powder, and paprika. The oriental rug was thoroughly coated in a thick layer of particulate dirt and dust and had accrued a gray, faded look. The open floor plan, an ambitious effort in hopes of large gatherings of friends and family, was cluttered with stacks of New York Times newspapers, cans of Diet Coke, and cups of ramen noodles, essentially forming an unintentional closed floor plan. Sam was physically unable to take care of the house, let alone leave the house, and every sight of the disheveled foyer brought a look of disgust to her face. Her “yes” man Matt had been instead replaced by a “no” man, or “I’m too tired” man, or “do it yourself” man, or “does it look like a give a crap?” man.

Sam’s nightstand clock read 10:30 AM. Five and half more hours until my salvation arrives, she thought to herself. That’s way too long. Sam slammed the door behind her, or at least the best she could. In the corner of the room was her twin-sized bed, which lay under a heap of heated blankets whose cords were still plugged into the outlet. When her pain episodes were particularly agonizing, she would let the blankets overheat and burn her, for the sudden burst of sharp pain temporarily erased the constant burning sensation of her fibromyalgia. That momentary relief, lasting not more than a couple of seconds, would wash over her, a couple moments of pure serendipity.

It had been over 13 hours since her last dose of analgesic relief. As for now, occasional pricks of her skin with a hair clip and slams of her hand against the wall would have to suffice.

The side shelf displayed a proud of collection of various hydrangeas, white tulips, and fragrant lilies, many of which had seen better days as they shed their wrinkled leaves and lost their vibrant colors. A purple yoga mat, a white elephant gift from many winters ago, gathered dust on the side shelf.

On Sam’s desk laid a heap of thick books–Living Your Best Day, No, It Is Not in My Head, and Handle with Care. Each had a bookmark napkin inside, marking places Sam would never return to. Bunch of crap that doesn’t help at all–how does taking deep breaths and imagining myself in some grotesque fantasyland help rid me of this fire spreading across all my muscles?

Adjacent to the books was a Converse shoe box full of empty pharmacy bottles–“Gabapentin 70 mg bid,” “Duloxetine 25 mg prn,” “Tramadol 100 mg o.d.,” and her favorite, “Hydrocodone/acetaminophen 10/325 mg t.i.d.” Unused gift cards sat tucked into her drawer with the common inscription of “Thank you for your participation in our study. As a token of our appreciation, attached you will find the total amount from your visit today.”

“Useless! Useless! Useless! Ridiculous waste of government funding!” she had screamed at them before furiously limping out of the imaging room.

Her eyes darted back and forth, unable to remember why she had trudged all the way upstairs. She caught a glimpse of herself in the standing mirror–her fingers could nearly encircle her thighs, not quite but almost, and it wouldn’t have been a surprise if her frail stature simply collapsed under its weight. A failure of Newton’s 3rd law I suppose–the floor can’t exert a normal force to counter my weight, Sam mused. The burgeoning family platters of Panda Express, filled with the aromas of orange chicken and broccoli beef, that she would order for herself when Matt was away for spring training camp were a relic of the past. Clothes that used to snuggly fit around her now hung loosely with nothing to hold onto except for her protruding hip bones.

Her drastic change in appearance could only be credited to the pain pills, the hydrocodone. She had been exhibiting all the classical signs of opioid dependence for months: Nausea? Check. Vomiting? Check. Constipation? Check. Reduced appetite? Check.

Her pain came before all. A life full of aspiration quickly turned into a life dictated by when she could pop another pill into her mouth per doctor’s orders. God, what would I do without those pills? Better off dead, I guess. Of course, the doctor’s orders soon became more flexible, as if they were recommendations.

The stash. Matt had leftover oxycodone from a past wisdom teeth removal surgery, and for a man his size, the maxillofacial surgeon had prescribed him an extremely generous number of pills. The pills now lay hidden in a cabinet, obscured behind the bookshelf on their upstairs lounge. Sam had been leeching off his supply without his knowledge, as Matt had no further use for the leftover oxy. If there was one thing keeping this marriage together, it was his pills. He wouldn’t notice if I only sometimes took one or two at a time, Sam assured herself.

Knowing that she had secretly siphoned off Matt’s supply over the past year or so, Sam still opened the cabinet, thrusting her arm inside in hopes of finding a leftover or partially crushed pill along the cabinet floor. She prided herself in only dabbling in the stash if truly necessary. Despite her prescription of two pills of hydrocodone a day, one with breakfast and one with dinner, they were never enough. Phony excuses like “I think a bottle was lost in the mail” or “I accidentally spilled a couple into the trashcan” 85 or 83 days after the last shipment could not shake Dr. Patel from his strict abidance to the FDA-sanctioned regulations of a maximum 90-day supply, causing Sam to rarely supplement her prescriptions with a handful of Matt’s leftovers. Rarely slowly turned into occasionally before erupting into daily.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sam spotted the bright orange bottle with its white cap and blue pills, so vividly and calmly tucked into the back corner. A devious grin spread across her face. She dug in deeper and grasped around it with her clammy hand, yet its shimmering image disappeared as soon as she made contact, her hand abruptly closing into a fist.

The hallucinations. Sam climbed down from the cabinet ledge, groaning in agony and cursing the Man Upstairs for the weather, before crawling back to her room and drifting off into a defeated slumber.

*

An aggressive knock followed by two irritating chimes of the doorbell woke Sam up. She pulled herself upright with her flaring, tender muscles. An irritating migraine left her momentarily dazed.

“Matt, honey, can you get the door?” No response. Again, but with more urgency, “Matt, answer the door please!” A Carolina Chickadee chippered, and the wind howled outside her window, but again, an eerie silence permeated through the house. “Ugh, you can’t do one thing at all for me today, can you?”

The nightstand clock now read 3:48 PM. My pills! My pills! My pills!

Sam bolted awake from her restless sleep and darted towards the front door. She practically flew down the stairs, and her legs trudged behind as if they were Jell-O, slowly crumbling under her uncharacteristic physical exertion. She passed by Matt, who was napping in front of the TV as the afternoon college football games were about to kick off. She opened the front door, heart palpitating with excitement to see the discretely packaged, Rubik’s Cube sized box with Costco Wholesale tape thoroughly wrapped around all six sides.

Instead, a new notice now clung to the door: Shipping delays now expected to extend until tomorrow barring an expected change in events. With love, HOA.

WITH LOVE? WITH LOVE?

Sam shut the door, crouching behind it and slamming her fists into its wooden frame. Her mind raced with thoughts while everything around her began slow down–the billowing trees outside, the murmur of the sports commentators behind her, everything.   

A wave of nausea washed over her as she limped towards Matt’s sleeping body on the couch. After taking a minute to regain her senses, Sam took a deep breath.

For once, she found some clarity. “Goodbye, Matt,” she whispered.

*

Karen sat on her balcony, heartily chewing a new wad of Hubba Bubba and sipping on some freshly made hot chocolate. She loved days like these, where all signs of debris or impurities were tucked away by a delicate sheet of snow. From her balcony, all she could see was the beautiful white neighborhood and its adjacent lake. Nothing could go wrong on days like these.

A woman suddenly came into her view, trudging towards the lake, and wrapped in a rug of some sort. Karen leaned forward in her chair; her interest piqued by the odd choice of clothing as protection against the frigid temperatures. The thick spruce tree forest in front of the lake slightly obscured her view, but Karen could see the woman steadily advancing through the forest. “Crazy son of a gun,” she muttered, shaking her head.

The woman reached the lake’s edge and gazed at the massive sheet of ice. Karen imagined that she was contemplating the stupidity and absurdity of her idea to fish at this time. After all, it was only best to fish before sunrise when the fish were hungry; all she could catch right now were some measly crappies.

The woman approached one of the ice fishing holes, just big enough for a large catfish to fit through–Jakob, the Norwegian fisherman down the road, set the town’s fishing record for the catfish he caught there. The entire neighborhood had congregated to celebrate Jakob’s achievement, except for Matt and Sam though–I wonder how they’re doing, Karen thought to herself.

The rug fell off the figure’s shoulders, revealing a frail, shivering woman without any ice-fishing gear in hand. Before Karen could take another sip of her hot chocolate, the woman tumbled into the hole and sank into the perilous, numbing waters.

She never came up. Karen stood there in shock, hoping that all of this was some twisted joke. All that was left was the pale oriental rug lying on the lake.

It finally clicked. Karen knew that rug. Matt had knocked on her door, many years back. Slightly winded from scaling her doorsteps, he asked to borrow her husband’s truck to transport a rug all the way from Texas. “A rug?” Karen scoffed before handing the keys to him. Matt mentioned that Sam’s memories of that rug — the board games and cuddles that her grandmother would give her as they lay there — held a special place in her heart. Karen’s recollection of their interaction had grown fuzzy–something about “feeling loved” and “cared for,” which Karen assumed described Matt’s choice to drive so far for a simple rug. “Even my husband wouldn’t drive twenty minutes down the road to grab a gallon of milk from the Food Lion,” Karen chortled in return, reminiscent on how wonderful and spontaneous young love could be.

As Karen rushed down the steps of her balcony, she could feel her guilt begin to eat at her. She thought about the conspicuous way she had glared at their front yard and the malicious gossip she had spread to feed the flames about Sam and Matt: “They’re both having affairs,” she joked at the weekly HOA meetings. “That’s why their house is a mess–neither of them even lives in the house.”

Now, Karen realized there was something more going on, something more wretched and sinister. She banged on Matt’s door and rang the doorbell, hearing its out-of-tune chimes echo throughout the house.

Pressing her ears against the door, she heard a voice — “Sam, the door! Now!” — followed by a loud, obnoxious groan. Sensing her urgency was not noted, Karen cried out, “Open the door!” as her knuckles reddened with every impact they delivered to the front door.

The voice repeated, “Sam, answer the door, will ya?”, this time in a calmer manner.

“It’s me, Matt–it’s Karen! Please, open the door!” Karen shouted, unsure if she was imagining a voice in her head or if Matt was genuinely inside the house ignoring her.

The voice repeated once more, “Sam… Will you please answer the door?”

Karen was on her knees. She pounded harder on the door, and finally there was a reply: “Ugh, coming!” the voice said.

Matt finally opened the front door, which was decorated with a wreath from two winters ago.

“Karen, what are you doing here?” Matt said casually.

She steadied her shaking body against the door, choked back her tears, but she could not speak.

---

Jason Bao attends Duke University where he is majoring in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Spanish Studies in hopes of a career in medicine. In his free time, he enjoys playing pickup basketball and writing short stories.